After upgrading to OS X 10.9, I found that whenever I copy/pasted text from a terminal window to TextEdit or an email message, it would paste using the same colors/background as was in the terminal. In my case, this meant that the text was white on a gray background. This was annoying, since I just wanted to see the text. To fix this, enter the following into a terminal.

After upgrading a server to RHEL6, I found that if other RHEL6 computers tried to NFS-mount a shared directory, all files were owned by nobody:nobody. To fix this, edit the file /etc/idmapd.conf and add a Domain line, something like this:

Domain = example.com

Then to make this change take effect, restart rpcidmapd.

/etc/rc.d/init.d/rpcidmapd restart

Then remount the drive or reboot. The files were owned by the corrected owner and group.

You can disable idmapping altogether on systems after RHEL6.3 with this:

My birthday is a few months away and I'm trying to plan what I would like to do. I like to do something different each year. Though for a few years, I went to a museum and a movie. Since the museum and movie were different each year, I let that count. This year I wanted to do something a little more different. First I thought about going on a trip someplace. But then I figured that spending the day by myself in a town where I didn't know anyone would be depressing. Then I was reading a blog post about overnight bike trips and thought that maybe I'd do that. I looked at the stations served by Amtrak and found one that was about 62 miles from my house and another that was around 100. A little later I was reading another blog where they mentioned the century being the target ride of bikers. Sort of like many runners want to do a marathon in their lifetime, a lot of bikers would like to ride 100 miles. I was looking into training for a century and found that I don't really have enough time before my birthday. So I let that go until I read something else about a metric century. That's only around 62 miles. Remembering that the one Amtrak station was around 62 miles from my house, I thought this seemed like a good plan. A little more research and I found that there's about 40 miles of bike path that I could use for the trip, which made it sound like a great plan. So I've decided that this year, I'm going to try to bike from Kankakee to Chicago, using the Wauponsee Glacial Trail and the Old Plank Trail. Of course, when I actually get into Chicago, I'll be riding on the street, hopefully in bike lanes. But I think this could be a little challenge and quite a bit of fun. I rode around 57 miles one day last summer, though the last few miles were painful. I believe I have enough time before my birthday to get into better riding shape, so that the ride will be ok. And the thought of doing the ride by myself is slightly scary enough that I think it would be good for me. So while the exact details of the ride still need to be worked out, I basically have a plan. First training ride tomorrow!

In general, I'm not a great gift-giver. I'm probably not much of a gift-receiver either. I just think that if there's something that I want, I'd go out and buy it. And if I don't, then I probably don't want it. If I'm giving someone a gift, I don't want to give them more junk that they have to store. So my go-to gift of late has been flowers. They look pretty for a while and then you can just throw them away. Totally biodegradable. At times though, I might like to give a longer lasting gift. So I've been thinking about things that I have that I enjoy. The one thing that comes to mind for me is a blanket. I know it's weird, but I really like a blanket. How would I describe the feeling of being wrapped in a blanket? I wouldn't say it's like getting a hug, because that's sort of corny. However, I do think it's just a feeling of being completely comfortable. Like how you feel when you're hanging out with good friends or family members.

My brother John first brought me a blanket back from India. Yes, I know it only cost like $1 and that's probably why it's now falling apart. But whenever I wrap myself in it, I think of my bro, which is kind of cool. When I went to Guatemala for my niece's adoption, I bought myself a very colorful blanket. I sometimes use it on my bed and sometimes when I'm watching tv. It's great in that each time I see it, I think of my niece and the trip. A few years ago, I wanted to see if I could make myself a quilt. That quilt is always on my bed. It reminds me how I just jumped in to quilting despite having no real idea of how to do it. It's not perfect, but it's something I'm rather proud of.

The thing is though, now that I've made myself a quilt, I have no desire to make myself another one. However, I do recall finding quilting rather relaxing. So I think that now that I'm just about done with my kitchen, I'm going to start quilting again. But my new rule is that I have to give away each quilt that I make. I like this in that it will be a sort of challenge to come up with ideas for quilts that other people might like. Or just making a quilt and then thinking of who might like it. I'm also totally fine with giving someone a quilt and them regifting it because it's not their thing. Just because something is interesting to me doesn't mean it's interesting to someone else.

I guess I've been thinking about this because I've recently watched some tv shows about craft and quilting was featured in one of the episodes. I have no desire to make a quilt as a piece of art that hangs on the wall. That just seems completely wrong to me. I think quilts are meant to be used. I know many people disagree with me on this and that's fine. If I gave someone a quilt and they wanted to hang it, that's fine, it's their quilt. I should not have any say in what they do with it after I give it to them. However for me, I'd go for the comfort.

Since I have cable (for six more days), I was able to get up early yesterday and this morning to watch the Tour de France. It's always very pretty to see the countryside and villages they ride through. And this year, the first couple of stages are in England, so that was neat too. However, after about four hours of watching today, I decided that I had spent enough time on the couch and I needed to get out. First I thought about riding the lakefront trail up to the north side, but quickly realized it would be crowded and not fun to ride. So instead, I headed south, down to the new Lake Shore Drive path. My plan was to ride down at a pretty fast pace and then take my time returning, stopping to take pictures on the way. I dubbed my ride the Tour de South Side, in honor of the Tour de France which inspired it. The other great thing was that I ran into two people I knew on the tour. Near Hyde Park, I saw my old boss biking, which was great to see. We had a very short chat. And then as I was close to home, my brother rode by. All in all, it was a great ride.

At the end of the new Lake Shore Drive and my turnaround point.At Steelworkers Park near some huge remnants of the old steel mill.More of Steelworkers ParkLooking at Lake Michigan from Steelworkers ParkLooking to the south and some refineries that are still thereAnother view of what's left of the old millA cool steel sculputer at 79th and South Shore DriveEntering the South Shore Cultural CenterLooking back at the South Shore Cultural Center from the lake sideNear La Rabida Children's HospitalPromontory Point

I have some windows computers at work that I use for backups. I recently moved one to another building that's on a different subnet. Trying to mount the disk using the name of the computer didn't work. The fix was to use the ip address instead of the name of the computer. For example, mounting \\eshop\backups didn't work. But mounting \\192.168.2.30\backups, worked just fine.